A few days and much agonizing later, I was staring off into the middle distance as I brushed my teeth. I looked up at my shirt and thought, ‘wait, whaaat?’ Maybe I can make this into a jersey. So, it began again WITH STRIPES! The Breton or French Navy shirt is a tried and true fashion staple worn by many an icon. My favorite is possibly B. Bardot, but a certain Coco Chanel can never be discounted. Since my role in this process was simply to be the idea person and given that I have no real aptitude for design on computers, I enlisted the help of Humble Frameworks and Slim Cady to make the idea live outside of my own mind. We worked for a while from our respective couches with our respective computers until harmony was achieved.

Each member of Les Petites has been assigned a color and a small icon. We really wanted this to be represented in the kit in a way that would be fun but sophisticated, so we played off the classic shoulder buttons of un pull marin, replacing them with representative dots. Incidentally, the lines, dots, and colorway are also reminiscent of the Harry Beck Paris Metro Map.

The final step in the design involved trolling the internet for the perfect french font. Now, fully immersed in Francophilia (team name, now team kits), I found we had no other option but to go with a french new wave cinema type face. Harking back to the most adorable B. Bardot, I found the perfect lettering in the title credits to the film, Contempt, directed by Jean-Luc Godard. Although this is not my favorite film of the genre, or even of Godard’s, it is the first film I saw upon moving to Chicago. I find this ties everything together quite nicely.

I hope you enjoy the kits, and please let us know the story of your kit designs. I’m really curious after this whole process.

Beautifully simple. The only minor addition I would make is to put Les Petites Victoires on the navy blue side panel of the jersey – in a small font – just to create brand/team awareness in pictures taken from the side while on the bike. Nicely done!

I am glad you asked me because I have had a long time to think about my personal touch kit design. When it happens it will be a putrid orange brown plaid resembling a leisure suit’s undershirt garment with button fly collars.